


if one could drive forever

by WingedFlight



Series: In a Lighter Age [4]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis, Supernatural
Genre: Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Fix-It of Sorts, Last Battle AU, M/M, how did i write spn fic in the year 2020 omg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-24
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:54:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27691711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WingedFlight/pseuds/WingedFlight
Summary: "You are dead now, and you need no longer want straight things."
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: In a Lighter Age [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2174952
Comments: 32
Kudos: 53





	if one could drive forever

For a long time, there was nothing. 

* * *

Then, amid the void of the Empty, there was something. Castiel thought it looked like a detached garage, just floating there amid the nothingness. Seeing as there had literally been absolutely nothing else going on, Castiel decided to investigate. 

He was not the only one. Angels and demons alike crowded in on the garage, by thousands and by millions. The crowd was all pushing and jostling forward, and Castiel pushed and jostled among them. Not that he was precisely sure why--he thought maybe the garage door was open, just a bit, and maybe if he managed to duck underneath-- 

Well, maybe there wouldn’t be _nothing_ on the other side. 

So Castiel rushed on. 

As he came closer to the garage, a funny thing seemed to happen. Either the garage door was very, very slowly rolling upward or the space beneath the door merely appeared to be getting larger the closer he got. Gradually, he made out the silhouette of a man beneath the doorway, which now seemed to be pulled all the way open. As all the angels and demons came rushing up towards this man, one or the other of two things happened to them. Some swerved to the right and disappeared into the man’s shadow that streamed away to the left of the garage door (nevermind how a shadow could exist in the Empty). Others swerved to the left and passed through the garage door (though Castiel could still not see what was on the other side). 

He did not have long to ponder this. For all that it seemed like the crowd was hustling forward for an unending length of time, it also seemed like no time at all before Castiel was at the front of this line. He looked up into the silhouetted man’s face and saw that he knew who it was. 

“Jack,” he said in surprise. 

Jack grinned. “Hey, Cas.”

“You’re alive,” Castiel continued. He really had not expected to see any of the Winchesters ever again. On the other wing, seeing Jack here in this doorway in the Empty was probably not a good indicator of aliveness. “Or are you dead?” 

Jack spread his hands. “I am God.” 

This was an interesting development, but Castiel did not have time to dwell on it. The crowd was still pushing forward and he had already lingered long enough. Jack tilted his head leftward and said, “Go on, he’s waiting for you.” 

And so Castiel swerved to the left and passed through the garage door. 

* * *

For a moment or two, Castiel did not know where he was or even who he was. Then he steadied himself, blinked, and looked around. It was not Empty inside the garage. There was light everywhere: that was why he was blinking. 

“Oh yeah, baby! That’s more like it!” 

The voice had come from behind him, as rough and familiar as a dusty country road. Castiel turned to face the man who had spoken. And what he saw set his heart beating. 

A line of Hunters stood before him, men and women garbed in their comfortable leather jackets and jeans and flannel shirts. Some carried machetes, others rifles or shotguns. Castiel nodded courteously and was about to speak when the youngest of the Hunters laughed. He stared hard at her face and then gasped with amazement, for he knew her. It was Jo Harvelle: but not Jo as he had last seen her. At first he thought she looked older, but then didn’t, and he could never make up his mind on that point. And then he saw that she stood beside her mother, and next in the line was Bobby, and then it was the one person Castiel most wished to see. 

He stepped forward and said a little awkwardly, “Dean. I did not expect I would ever see you again.” 

And Dean gave him a crooked smile, the kind that had always been reserved for Castiel alone, and said, “When have you ever known me to give up?” 

“But if I might ask,” said Cas, looking again at the line of men and women who had gathered, “where is your brother?” 

“Sam,” answered Dean shortly, “is no longer a Hunter.” 

“Yes,” said Jack. The boy had apparently finished up at the garage door, or perhaps had simply decided to take a break. “And whenever Dean tried to talk to him about hunting, he’d say, ‘Can’t we move on? Why should we focus on the past after we’ve saved the world and lost so much?’”

“Oh that boy!” said Bobby, “He’s interested in nothing nowadays except hairstyles and glasses. He always was too keen on a normal life.” 

“Normal life indeed,” said Dean. “I wish he’d go back to being normal. He trained all his life to fight monsters and he was damn good at it, and now he’ll waste the rest of his life trying to pretend it never happened.” 

“Well,” said Castiel, deciding it was probably best to change the subject, “Don’t let’s talk about that now. Look! Here are some lovely fruit trees. Let us taste them.” 

For he had looked about him and realized just how very queer this adventure was. He had believed himself to be inside a little rundown garage. In reality, they stood on grass, surrounded by green trees under a blue sky, and a gentle green light gave everything a soft and comforting glow. Not far away from them rose a grove of trees, thickly leaved, but under every leaf there peeped out a rainbow of fruits such as no one has seen on Earth. 

While he had never known Dean to voluntarily eat a fruit, the man was eager to join Castiel in exploring this grove. He strode toward these trees, one hand in his pocket and the other still holding a shotgun up against his shoulder--though there was absolutely no sign of anything a shotgun might be needed for in this place. Castiel followed, and noted that the other Hunters hung back. 

After only a few steps into the grove, Dean stopped and turned to face Castiel. He was no longer smiling. “Cas,” he said, swinging the shotgun down from his shoulder to hang awkwardly at his side, “When I last saw you--” 

“Oh right. That,” said Cas, as if he had almost forgotten all about it. As if he had not spent the equivalent of an eternity dwelling on every single word he had spoken in those last minutes with Dean on Earth. 

“You, uh, you said some stuff,” said Dean awkwardly. 

“Yes.” 

Dean rubbed the back of his neck with the hand that was not holding the shotgun. “You said that knowing me changed you. That you, uh,” he cleared his throat, “loved me.” 

“Yes,” said Castiel, who had never truly understood the human emotion of embarrassment until this moment. 

“Truth is, Cas, I--well, I mean--I guess I should say--oh screw it.” And then Dean stopped trying to speak in words and leaned forward to speak in another manner entirely.

What was the kiss like? It was nearly indescribable. The closest I can come is that it was like drinking the most refreshing beer imaginable after one has been hot and thirsty for a very, very long time. It was all Castiel had ever wanted and it was perfect. 

When the kiss ended, Dean pulled back and looked into Castiel’s eyes and said, “You changed me too, Cas.” 

* * *

They spent quite a long time together under the fruit trees. At last, Cas said to Dean, “You haven’t yet told me how you got here.” 

“There’s not much to tell,” said Dean. “I was in an old barn, trying to save some kids from--vampires, I think. Or maybe clowns. I can’t quite recall, they weren’t very memorable.” 

“And what happened then?” said Cas. 

“Well, it’s not very easy to describe,” said Dean. “I was thrown back against a post, and there was a horrible pain in my back except it didn’t quite hurt at all. And I felt not so much scared as--well, excited. Oh--and this was weird: I’d had a sore stomach, from eating too much pie earlier in the day. I noticed it had suddenly gone. And I felt very light. And then--here I was. And then here you were.” 

From beyond the grove were the beginnings of shouting--not scared or angry shouting as they might have encountered during a hunt on Earth, but the joyful sort Castiel might have expected to hear from a picnic. He looked back the way they’d come, and Dean looked as well, and then without needing to confer, they both headed back to the others. 

Where before there had been only grass, Castiel could clearly see a winding country road leading away through the woods. The rest of the Hunters, and a whole great many other sorts of people, were beginning to walk along this road in the same direction. Jack was waiting for them; he leaned comfortably against the side of a black Impala parked on the shoulder. 

“Yes!” shouted Dean, dashing forward to stroke his car. 

Jack grinned and straightened up. “Come further in! Come further up!” he shouted and, without waiting, began sprinting along the road. 

There was no doubt what the next move would be. Dean slid in behind the wheel. Cas climbed into the passenger seat. The car rumbled to life and Dean hit the pedal. 

If one could drive without running out of gas, I don’t think one would often want to do anything else--particularly when sitting in a car with one’s soulmate. The music was blasting, the windows were down, and the road never seemed to end. There were other cars and trucks on the road, and plenty of people were running alongside (and somehow able to keep up the pace just fine without ever tiring), but the country road was extremely wide and there was no crowding. 

Occasionally, someone would call, “Don’t stop! Further up and further in!” and everyone would cheer. 

After an unknowable length of time, Castiel became aware of a presence in the backseat of the car and glanced over his shoulder to see Jack. “You don’t yet look so happy as I mean you to be,” said the new God.

Dean looked at him in the rearview mirror. “Guess we’re afraid of being sent away. I know I’m dead. And this is supposed to be the new Heaven, right? But I’ve been brought back from the dead so often.” 

“No fear of that,” said Jack. “Have you not guessed?” 

Their hearts leaped and a wild hope rose within them. 

“There _was_ a real juggalo vampire fight,” said Jack softly. “You did in fact die, and I have made death permanent. You are dead now, and you need no longer want straight things. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.” 

And as he spoke, Dean and Cas turned to each other again and forgot everything around them; but the things they began to do with each other were so great and sexy that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life together on Earth and all their hunting adventures had only been the opening theme: now at last they were beginning Episode One of the Great Television Show which no one on Earth has seen: which goes on forever: in which every episode is better than the one before.

**Author's Note:**

> At first, I wasn’t sure whether I should tag this as a fix-it fic and then I remembered that there’s no way I could be posting something worse than the finale and therefore, my version must be better and therefore yes, it counts as fixing. 
> 
> A lot of the language of this is lifted almost verbatim from The Last Battle, with slight changes made to names and descriptions and sometimes also context. So thank you to C.S. Lewis for doing the heavy lifting on this one.
> 
> Oh and thanks to beholdingslut on tumblr for the inspiration via a post about Sam being left behind for liking lipstick and nylons.


End file.
